Like any other society, the National Hockey League is awash in ritual, offering the pleasure of small things and a bond that stretches over teams and time.
Consider the Stanley Cup handoff, which began in the 1990s, an intricate bit of business. This crowning moment, when each member of the winning squad gets his turn hoisting the trophy, deserves more than hey-you-take-it randomness, but plotting the celebratory path through the team is impractical and bad juju. Like a union shop, seniority is the overriding guideline, although the order can be tweaked to account for sentimentality.
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“It’s nothing you ever want to talk about during the playoffs,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog says. “I told [defenseman Erik Johnson] years ago, when we were going through the tough times, that one day we were going to win it, and I was going to give it to him first. But then, after that, it’s sorta up to each guy.”
Landeskog accepted the Stanley Cup from NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly in Tampa after the Avs dethroned the Lightning last June. Landeskog hoisted its 35 pounds and passed it to Johnson. Johnson gave it to 35-year-old Andrew Cogliano, who had been traded to Colorado three months earlier. Then Nathan MacKinnon . . . Jack Johnson . . . Nazem Kadri . . . Andre Burakovsky . . . the cast of This Is Us . . . a friendly TSA agent at Denver International Airport . . . Lily from AT&T . . . and, belatedly, Cale Makar. He was 14th.
Not that Makar minded. Or noticed, really. Just six days earlier, the then 23-year-old had won the Norris Trophy as the NHL’s best defenseman. And six or so minutes earlier he had been awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.
